Flying while pregnant - not recommended!

Being back home with my family for Christmas was great, getting there was horrible!

I never, ever want to travel longhaul again while pregnant. Travelling to LAX was bad enough, but then having to get onto the 10.5 hour flight to London Heathrow was bad... real bad. I thought since we were there for almost 4 weeks that I'd be feeling 'much better' by the time we had to make the journey back home... I was wrong. The flight(s) home were even worse. The flight to LAX from London was a nightmare, nothing else can describe just how bad it was. I had sickness the whole flight and I couldn't get a moment's rest. I'm sure having just experienced an emotional goodbye a couple hours before flying didn't help but let me just say, DON'T DO IT! It's horrible!


But, we did survive... I'm not sure how, but we did. We made it and were on US soil... thankfully we landed about 30 minutes early into LAX too.

We trot down the stairs into the security hall. It's packed, it's hot and my body thinks it's 4 in the morning and I need food. Not a good combo.

Cory lines up and I make the three trips to the bathroom with thanks to my sensitive stomach. The bathroom wasn't close, so each time I was worried about if I'd actually make it.

Finally we start getting closer to the security officer, 75 minutes has passed by now since we arrived in this hot and packed hall and I am struggling to keep it together. We are about 7-10 people from the front and a new wave of nausea hits me like a brick to head!

Oh boy... I get look at Cory, get out of line and start towards the bathroom but I know I'm not going to make it... I have one more 'barf bag' in my purse and I don't have a choice but to use it. I find a discreet (as discreet as it gets in an open plan room) area next to a pillar and go to work, there's nothing I can do to hold back.

Cory comes to find me and all of a sudden I lose it, I'm crying, I can't cope, I need food, I want to be at home, I need sleep, I want to be anywhere but in the line for passport control at LAX airport. I just want to find a corner and stay there in a ball until the nausea passes.

Instead I have no choice but to get back into line, we are at the back again now and I'm worried we're going to miss our flight to PDX. I look at the clock, it's been almost 90 mins since we got into this hall.

As we step back into line, I'm still crying but a security officer (big tall, kinda intimidating guy) comes over to us, takes one look at Cory and says "Excuse me sir, is there a problem?" with that I start bawling, full on crying - I can't contain myself. I say "sir, I'm pregnant, it's hot in here, my body thinks it's 4am and I need something to eat".

With that he tells us to follow him and brings us to the front of the line and does our passport stuff. He is quick and so light hearted, he asks if I need anything else, or any medical attention and when I say I should be good he says "Welcome home you two, now go get something to eat".

Officer O'Quinn will probably never know how thankful I was to be greeted by him that evening. He will never know that if he didn't step in right there I might have just fallen apart at the seams, but I am just thankful that he could see there was an issue even while doing his job and examining all the previous passengers in line.

After that we rushed to get our bags, made it through customs without much trouble. Hopped on the terminal transfer bus, realised we were almost about to miss our flight.... we were hurrying as much as we can! We got through security again, got to our gate and just about had time to buy a bottle of water before they boarded us onto the little jet.

A couple hours later and 20 mins ahead of schedule we landed in PDX. I was so glad to finally be in Oregon! We grabbed two carts (they were just laying there, for free in the lobby - thank you again) and we got to the baggage hall. Our 4 bags were amongst the first 5 to come out which has never happened before - we text Cory's Mom that we had our bags and walked outside.

We made it back to our place by about 1.30am - and our little kitty cat was glad to see us.

We put groceries in the fridge, dumped all our cases in the living room and went to bed.

...it has never felt so good to get back into our bed!